One Missing Piece That Could Help the Blue Jackets Turn Things Around

The Blue Jackets are off to their second consecutive disastrous season, and it’s evident that they need a lot of help. But, I think a lot of their issues would solve themselves if they could actually find one missing piece.

Without beating the dead horse too much, the Blue Jackets are just not good enough this year. Last night’s 7-3 loss to the New York Islanders leaves them with a record of 8-15-5 (21 points) – actually one point fewer than they had through 28 games last season (10-16-2, 22 points). I’m not sure what we expected from this team, but it wasn’t this. They’re terrible.

We thought this group would have no problem scoring goals, but instead, they sit 25th in the NHL with an average of 2.86 goals for per game. Defensively, they’re still a mess; sitting 28th in the league with a 3.50 goals against average. The sad thing is, they’ve actually improved quite a bit defensively – I would argue that they’re right about where I expected them to be at this point. We knew they would struggle on that side of the puck, after their performance last season, and with all of the new faces coming in.

The difference between last year and this year: we can’t blame this team’s plight on a rash of injuries. Yes, there are a few guys sitting out right now due to various ailments and an illness running through the club. But, at this point last year, it might have been easier to count the number of regulars who actually were in the lineup, rather than the ones who were not.

There is one glaring piece missing from this puzzle, and I don’t think this team will be worth anything until they find it.